Beyond the Sea: On the use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
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irk-123456789-1918642023-07-10T21:14:26Z Beyond the Sea: On the use of за море in the Primary Chronicle Inés García de la Puente 2022 Article Beyond the Sea: On the use of за море in the Primary Chronicle / García de la Puente Inés // Ruthenica. — 2022. — Т. 17. — С. 28-36. — Бібліогр.: 16 назв. — англ. 1995-0276 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/191864 en Ruthenica Інститут історії України НАН України |
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Beyond the Sea: On the use of за море in the Primary Chronicle / García de la Puente Inés // Ruthenica. — 2022. — Т. 17. — С. 28-36. — Бібліогр.: 16 назв. — англ. |
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© Ruthenica XVII (2022), 28–36
Inés García de la Puente
Beyond the Sea:
On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
The expression за море appears repeatedly in the Primary Chronicle — nine
times, to be exact. It consists of the preposition за, whose meaning can be rendered
into English as “beyond” or “the other side of”, and море, a neuter substantive that
means “sea”, declined in the accusative singular. Usually interpreted as “beyond
the sea”, “(to) the other side of the sea” or, by metonymy, “overseas”, the phrase
translates serendipitously well into modern languages. Be it in 12th-century East
Slavonic or in modern English translation, the expression seems to carry both
direct and figurative meanings that seamlessly fit into the different contexts in
which it appears. The brief study that follows uses close text-analysis to reassess
the adequacy of those interpretations. Its aim is not to refute them, but to invite the
reader to further reflect on the meaning and the implications that the use of за море
carries in the Primary Chronicle.
The number of instances of the syntagm за море in the Primary Chronicle
increases from nine to eleven if we include a related expression in the total count,
a compound of за море: изъ замориӕ or заморьӕ). This syntagm consists of
заморие preceded by yet another preposition, изъ. In it, за море becomes
lexicalized into a single unit: the noun заморие. It is declined in the genitive
because it is grammatically ruled by the preposition изъ. Заморие has its own
entry in Old East Slavonic dictionaries like Sreznevskii’s Materialy and the Slovar’
drevnerusskogo iazyka XI–XVII vekov, where it is defined as “transmarina” and as
“lands or countries beyond the sea” respectively. In the oldest of the Rus’ian
chronicles besides the Primary Chronicle, the Novgorod First Chronicle of the
Older Redaction, изъ замориӕ appears twice1. In 1130, заморье refers to beyond
1 See Boris M. Kloss’s summary of the redactions of the chronicle in his foreword to the 2000 reprint of
the First Novgorod Chronicle in: “Predislovie k izdaniiu 2000 g.,” Novgorodskaia Pervaia Letopis’
starshego i mladshego izvodov (Moscow, 2000) (Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei t. 3), V–VIII, and
Aleksei A. Gippius, “K istorii slozheniia teksta Novgorodskoi Pervoi Letopisi,” Novgorodskii
istoricheskii sbornik 6/16 (1997), 3–71. There is a wealth of bibliography and of different opinions on
the relationship between the Novgorod First Chronicle, the Primary Chronicle, and pre-existing
chronicle compendia like the Primary Compilation that have not survived to the present and whose
contents can, thus, only be inferred; as examples of scholarly disagreement, see, among others, Donald
29Beyond the Sea: On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
the sea in Gotland (и-замори ӕ съ Готъ), from where seven, possibly merchant,
boats were coming when they sank. Under the year 1134, we read that some
Novgorodians were slaughtered “beyond the sea in Denmark” (за моремь въ
Дони)2. The adjective derived from заморе, заморьские, is listed in these
dictionaries too. Besides in the chronicles, it is attested in at least one birchbark
letter: document no. 1009, dated to the mid-12th century3. In it, senders Luka and
Ivan tell Snovid (probably their father) that they did not buy any Greek goods, and
ask him to look for “overseas goods” (товарь […] заморьскаго). Unsurprisingly,
in all these northern sources the sea referred to is the Baltic, which is occasionally
called the “Varangian Sea” in the Primary Chronicle; in the context of Novgorod
at the time, “beyond the (Baltic) sea” could mean anywhere in Scandinavia or
Western Europe, as the Baltic was the common route for goods from continental
Europe to enter Novgorod and vice versa4.
Изъ замориӕ appears twice in the Primary Chronicle. Since iz indicates origin,
the expression now means “from beyond the sea”, as we saw in the examples from
the Novgorod texts. That is, whereas за море expresses direction, изъ замориӕ
expresses origin. I will start with the second example because it needs little com-
ment: inserted under the year 980, the syntagm denotes the origins of Rogvolod
of Polatsk, Rogneda’s father. He had come from beyond the sea and settled in —
and probably also founded — Polatsk, a town in what eventually became part of
the territory of Rus’. The first instance of изъ замориӕ requires more explanation
because it appears in the prequel to the legend of the “Calling of the Varangians”.
I call the 859 entry a “prequel” because it sets the stage for the actual legend, in-
serted under 862, which is the next filled-in entry after 859 (860 and 861 are
empty). Indeed, the 859 entry explains that the Varangians from beyond the sea
received tribute from certain tribes — Chuds, (Il’men) Slavs, Merians and all
Krivichians — and the Khazars received tribute from other tribes: Polians, Sever-
ians and Viatichians. Here изъ замориӕ is an attribute, that is, a syntagm that di-
rectly qualifies the Varangians (Имаху дань Варѧзи, из заморьӕ, under 859)5.
Ostrowski, “The Načal’nyj Svod theory and the Povest’ vremennyx let,” Russian Linguistics 31 (2007),
269–308; and Alexey A. Gippius, “Reconstructing the original of the Povest’ vremennyx let: a
contribution to the debate,” Russian Linguistics 38 (2014), 341–366.
2 Quotes from the Novgorod First Chronicle are taken from the already cited Novgorodskaia Pervaia
Letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov (Moscow, 2000).
3 I only spot-checked some of the birchbark documents posted on gramoty.ru; it is likely that there are more
examples. Detailed information about document no. 1009, its text and its translation into modern Russian
are available at http://gramoty.ru/birchbark/document/show/novgorod/1009/ (accessed July 15, 2021).
4 Andrei A. Zalizniak interpreted the goods from beyond the sea as goods from the West that arrived in
Novgorod via the Baltic Sea (“Вторая лекция академика А. А. Зализняка о грамотах из раскопок
2010 г., 6 октября,” lesson summarized online at https://mitrius.livejournal.com/802324.html, accessed
July 10, 2021). Similarly, Jos Schaeken notes that goods from beyond the sea are those from north-
western Europe. See his “Comments on Birchbark Documents Found in the Twenty-First Century,”
Russian Linguistics 41 (2017), 123–149, especially 141.
5 All quotations from the Primary Chronicle are based on The e-PVL, an online edition of the alpha text
reconstructed by Donald Ostrowski and available at David Birnbaum’s http://pvl.obdurodon.org/.
30 Inés García de la Puente
Something that stands out is that, whereas the text specifies the provenance of the
Varangians, it does not do the same with the Khazars. Why?
One might hypothesize that the text provides the origin of the Varangians
because at the time when the events are set (the ninth century, according to the
chronology of the Primary Chronicle) the Varangians were relatively obscure,
whereas Khazaria was a well-known empire. However, one could also postulate
that “from beyond the sea” complements the Varangians as an epithet rather than
a piece of factual information, because their origin might, after all, have been well-
known, at least to the 12th-century chronicler. In other words, one could argue
either that изъ замориӕ provides significant information about the origin of the
Varangians, or that изъ замориӕ adorns the Varangians as a sobriquet. In this
example, concluding that изъ замориӕ is an explicative syntagm or an epithet is
in the eye of the beholder. However, this is the only instance in the whole Chronicle
where изъ замориӕ is syntactically an attribute of the Varangians. За море never
appears as an attribute to the Varangians. This is important to note because it has
been suggested that за море is just a formula and, as such, it does not convey any
significant information.
This idea was brought up by Elena A. Mel’nikova in the context of a series of
studies around the legend of the “Calling of the Varangians”, in which her focus
is to reveal the historical truth hidden behind the legend. Based on archaeological
evidence, she concludes that the Rus’ whom the local tribes invited were already
settled on the continental side of the Baltic, that is, the side of the Baltic that was
to become part of Rus’ territory. Consequently, she states, the fact that the
Varangians are described as coming from “beyond the sea” is a commonplace, the
result of a formulaic way of writing6. Since my understanding of “formula” is a
“stock expression” or a “fixed epithet”, I cannot fully agree with this statement7.
The pairing of the Varangians with “beyond the sea” is, indeed, recurrent in the
Primary Chronicle, yet I do not think that that turns the expression into a formula.
The digital version is largely based on Donald Ostrowski, comp. and ed., David J. Birnbaum, assoc.
ed., and Horace G. Lunt, senior cons. The Povestʹ vremennykh let: An interlinear collation and
paradosis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
6 Elena A. Mel’nikova argues that Riurik and his men had already moved out of Scandinavia and settled
in the north-western area of future Rus’ (the Ladoga-Il’men and upper Volga region), or that they were
born there to Scandinavians who had settled in the area earlier on. In either case, rather than coming
from overseas, Riurik and his men may have already been neighbours to the tribes that “invited” them.
See Elena A. Mel’nikova, “Riad v Skazanii o prizvanii variagov i ego evropeiskie i skandinavskie
paralleli”, 249–251 and ftn. 4; and “Riurik, Sineus i Truvor v drevnerusskoi istoriograficheskoi
traditsii,” 204. Both articles are included in Elena A. Mel’nikova’s collected works Drevniaia Rus’
i Skandinaviia: Izbrannye Trudy, ed. G. V. Glazyrina and T. N. Dzhakson (Moscow, 2011), 249–256
and 201–216 respectively.
7 For a definition in a reference work, see “Epic formula”, Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Mar. 2002,
https://www.britannica.com/art/epic-formula (accessed July 11, 2021). For a scholarly discussion of the
ambiguity of the term see Yuri Kleiner, “The Formula: Morphology and Syntax,” John Miles Foley’s
World of Oralities: Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory, ed. Mark C. Amodio (Leeds, 2020),
107–122.
31Beyond the Sea: On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
According to the Chronicle narrative, the Rus’ came from beyond the sea: as I will
try to show, the Varangians are associated with за море because that association
was perceived as factual rather than clichéd within the narrative. While I don’t
deny a formulaic flavour to the expression “beyond the sea”, I think that its use in
the Chronicle points towards a denotative, geographical space, rather than being
a mere adornment to the name “Varangians”.
Let us, then, start analyzing за море. Of the nine instances where it appears in
the Chronicle, a considerable proportion — five — are clustered around the
princes Igor, Volodimir Sviatoslavich and Yaroslav Volodimirovich. It is also
significant, as I will explain, that of the nine, four appear in the entries for the years
862 and 1024, which correspond to the passages of the “Calling of the Varangians”
and to the Battle of Listven. In order to make my exposition clearer, I will address
the legend of the “Calling” and the Battle of Listven at the end, after having
covered the five other instances that are spread throughout the Chronicle.
The first time that за море appears is when Igor sends beyond the sea for Va-
rangians in order to recruit warriors to attack Constantinople (посъла по Варѧгы
за море, s.a. 941, col. 45). The second is when Volodimir, who is in Novgorod,
flies beyond the sea to run away from Yaropolk, who has just killed their brother
Oleg in Vruch (Слышавъ же се Володимиръ въ Новѣгородѣ, ӕко Ӕропълкъ
уби Ольга, убоӕвъ сѧ, бѣжа за море, s.a. 977, col. 75). One generation later,
a similar situation occurs: Yaroslav, who is in Novgorod, fears that his father, that
same Volodimir who had fled from his brother some decades earlier, will attack
him; instead of running away, Yaroslav brings in Varangians from beyond the sea
to defend himself (Ӕрославу сущю Новѣгородѣ […] посъла за море, приведе
Варѧгы, боӕ сѧ отьца своего, s.a. 1015, col. 75). The next instance is when Ya-
roslav retreats to Novgorod after his half-brother Sviatopolk and Boleslaw, the
King of Poland, have defeated him at a battle in Volyn, on the Western Bug; from
Novgorod, Yaroslav wants to run away beyond the sea. However, Yaroslav’s
посадникъ, Kostiatin, efficiently dissuades him from crossing the sea (he has
Yaroslav’s boats chopped up!) and, instead, collects money from the Novgorodians
to hire Varangians, with whom Yaroslav will defeat Sviatopolk (Ӕрославу же
прибѣгъшю къ Новугороду, хотѧше бѣжати за море, и посадьникъ Костѧтин
[…] приведоша Варѧгы, и въдаша имъ скотъ, и съвъкупи Ӕрославъ воӕ
мъногы, s.a. 1018, col. 143). So far, за море has only appeared linked to events
in the north of Rus’. The last case, however, is related to the opposite end of the
map: Constantinople. Indeed, in 1079, Khazars capture Oleg Svyatoslavich of
Tmutarakan’ and exile him “beyond the sea to Constantinople” (Ольга емше
Козаре поточиша за море Цьсарюграду, s. a. 1079, col. 204).
In all these instances, за море provides geographical information relevant to
the setting and the action described in the Chronicle. The expression literally
means beyond the sea: it is a foreign land separated from Rus’ by a sea. In most
cases, the sea in question is the Baltic; in one case, it is the Black Sea. The Baltic
32 Inés García de la Puente
is the sea implied when the action happens in the northern territories of Rus’; the
Black Sea is referred to when Oleg Sviatoslavich is sent from Rus’ to
Constantinople. In the northern setting, it is worth noting that Novgorod is the base
from where princes flee to “beyond the sea”, or from where they obtain military
reinforcements. The only instance when Novgorod is not mentioned is in 941,
when Igor’ recruits Varangians from “beyond the sea”, presumably from Kyiv,
where, we suppose, he returned to after his defeat against the Byzantines.
The entries of 862 and 1024 contain the passages of the “Calling of the
Varangians” and of the Battle of Listven respectively. I will analyze them
separately from the rest of the Chronicle because each of these passages forms its
own closed, literary narrative. Let us start with 862.
The entry of 862 is well known because it includes the “Calling of the Varan-
gians”8. Here the syntagm за море appears for the first time. According to the le -
gend, after having expelled the Varangians “to the other side of the sea” earlier on,
the local inhabitants of the area that will later become northern Rus’ “went beyond
the sea, to the Varangians” (Изъгнаша Варѧгы за море, and идоша за море къ
Варѧгомъ, both under 862). “Beyond the sea” refers to the territory where the
Varangians are sent by the local tribes, and where the latter go to invite the former.
The syntagm complements the verbs (изъгнаша and идоша) rather than the noun
“Varangians”. That за море is associated with the Varangians is undeniable — it ap-
pears in conjunction with them in the two sentences. Ho wever, rather than being
formulaically attached to the Varangians, it provides information about their geo-
graphical location, as we would expect from the local complement of a verb.
The Battle of Listven is narrated under the year 1024. Yaroslav, who is in
Novgorod preparing to go against his brother Mstislav, sends beyond the sea for
Varangians; Yakun comes with them to fight Mstislav (Ӕрославъ, приде
Новугороду, и посъла Ӕрославъ за море по Варѧгы. И приде Ӕкунъ съ
Варѧгы, col. 148), and the armies meet in Listven, a few kilometres to the west of
Chernihiv. The narrative about this battle puts a strong focus on tactical and
descriptive aspects of the encounter: Mstislav placed his Severiane warriors in the
front and his дружина on the flanks; the Severiane clashed with Yaroslav’s
Varangians, who were presumably better trained as warriors; after Yaroslav and
8 This narrative has received a huge amount of scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) attention because it was
considered a key source of information to reconstruct the origins of Rus’, and because, consequently,
it sparked the Normanist controversy. One of the latest monograph-length discussions about the origins
of Rus’, including a skeptical approach to the legend of the “Calling,” can be found in Aleksei Tolochko,
Ocherki nachal’noi Rusi (Kiev, Sankt-Peterburg, 2015), especially on pages 17–20 and 92–98. Elena
A. Mel’nikova and Vladimir Ya. Petrukhin have published extensively both on the historical and literary
background of the legend, sometimes independently, sometimes in collaboration; see, for example, the
already cited E. A. Mel’nikova, “Riurik, Sineus i Truvor v drevnerusskoi istoriograficheskoi traditsii,”
201–216; as well as Mel’nikova and V. Ya. Petrukhin, “’Riad’ legendy o prizvanii variagov v kontekste
rannesrednevekovoi diplomatii,” Drevniaia Rus’ i Skandinaviia: Izbrannye Trudy, ed. G. V. Glazyrina
and T. N. Dzhakson (Moscow, 2011), 190–200.
33Beyond the Sea: On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
Yakun fled, Mstislav was satisfied that many Severiane lay dead on the ground, as
well as Yaroslav and Yakun’s Varangians, while he had not lost any members of
his дружина. The weather conditions before the battle are described in detail:
night came and there were “darkness, lighting, thunder and rain” (и бывъши
нощи, бысть тьма, громъ и мълниӕ и дъждь). This sets up a stage of doom. Once
the battle begins, we read an epic-like description of a fierce battle where weapons
glitter in the flashes of the lightning (ӕко посвѣтѧше мълниӕ, блисташа сѧ
оружие, и бѣ гроза велика и сѣча сильна и страшна). The description of the
storm wraps the battle in a fateful atmosphere; at the end, Yaroslav and Yakun lose
and have to flee.
Yakun himself is another element of wonder. He is described as blind (бѣ
Ӕкунъ слѣпъ, col. 148, 8), and he wears a cloak woven of gold. The cloak is
mentioned twice: first, when Yakun is described, and second, when upon losing
the battle against Mstislav, Yakun “fled out of his golden cloak” (Ӕкунъ ту
отъбѣже луды златыѣ, col. 148). Blindness, a golden cloak, an intriguing “fleeing
out of” that cloak, all of it wrapped in a fierce battle that shines with lightning
effects, create an apocalyptic atmosphere where the natural mixes with the
mysterious and, perhaps, the supernatural. It may not be a coincidence that the
battle is preceded in the 1024 entry by a passage about magicians. Although the
magicians’ craft is despised by Yaroslav, they bring an element of the supernatural
to the entry.
The chronicler probably knew little about Yakun, whom modern scholars have
identified with the historical Hákon Eiríksson9. Although all Primary Chronicle
witness manuscripts describe him as “blind” (слѣпъ), Yakun was probably
“handsome” (сь лѣпъ), as Hákon/Yakun came from a family whose male line was
known for their attractiveness10. Yakun’s fleeing out of his golden cloak parallels a
motif that appears in various sagas, and that has been interpreted as a trick to save
his life (and, in this case, probably Yaroslav’s also) in a battle that he loses11.
9 See Omeljan Pritsak, The Origin of Rus’. Vol. 1: Old Scandinavian Sources other than the Sagas
(Cambridge, MA, 1981), 404–414.
10 The first to advance that the original reading was сь лѣпъ (“handsome”) was H. P. Lambin, “O slepote
Yakuna i ego zlatotkannoi lude: kritiko-filologicheskoe issledovanie,” Zhurnal ministerstva narodnogo
prosveshcheniia 108 (1858), 33–58 (apud Mikheev, “Variazhskie kniaz’ia...,” 27, see full reference in
the following note).
11 Anna F. Litvina and Fedor B. Uspenskii compellingly make the case for this interpretation in Anna
F. Litvina and Fedor B. Uspenskii, “Pochemu Variag Yakun ‘otbezhe ludy zlatoe’? Stseny listvenskoi
bytvy 1024 g.” Drevniaia Rus’. Voprosy medievistiki 63 (2016), 27–40; and “Zolotaia luda variaga
Yakuna,” in their Pokhvala shchedrosti, chasha iz cherepa, zolotaia luda…Kontury russko-variazhskogo
kul’turnogo vzaimodeistviia (Moskva, 2019), 151–175. Litvina and Uspenskii’s work partially relies on
other recent publications about Yakun, his blindness, and his cloak, like Igor’ N. Danilevskii, Povest’
vremennykh let: germenevticheskie osnovy izucheniia letopisnykh tekstov (Moskva, 2004), 175–176;
Aleksei A. Gippius “Begstvo ot plashcha: Zametki o ‘zolotoi lude’ Yakuna ‘Slepogo’,” Terra Balkanica.
Terra Slavica. K yubileiu T. V. Tsiv’ian. Moscow 2007 (Balkanskie chteniia 9), 52–58; and Savva M.
Mikheev, “Variazhskie kniaz’ia Yakun, Afrikan i Shimon: Literaturnye siuzhety, transformatsiia imen
i istoricheskii kontekst,” Drevniaia Rus’. Voprosy medievistiki 32 (2008/2), 27–32.
34 Inés García de la Puente
Yet this is what we know today. To the chronicler, Yakun was a blind Varangian
prince wrapped in mystery who took part in a battle at Yaroslav’s side12.
The syntagm за море appears twice in 1024: first when Yaroslav sends from
Novgorod for Varangians beyond the sea, and at the closing when, after losing the
battle, Yaroslav and Yakun part ways: the former goes back to Novgorod, the latter
to beyond the sea. Are these two instances of за море any different from the
others? Despite the ominous atmosphere of the battle, and the overall legendary
atmosphere of the passage, the function of the syntagm is not any different in 1024
than in the other passages: за море is where the Varangians come from, a territory
down-to-earthly located beyond Novgorod and the Baltic.
In the 862 and 1024 entries, two passages wrapped in a halo of legend, за море
is a complement of the verb. It denotes the territory the Varangians go to and come
from. That is, за море functions as a geographical reference.
What about за море beyond the Primary Chronicle? Although the goal of
this brief essay is limited to assessing the meaning of за море intra-textually in
the Primary Chronicle, it is illustrative to look, even briefly, at the expression
in other contemporary literary works. Among original Old East Slavonic literary
texts of the 11th–12th centuries, the expression seems to be attested only once13.
It appears in the Slovo of Daniel the Exile to Prince Yaroslav Volodimirovich,
written in the 12th century14. Towards the conclusion of the text, the following
verse appears: “Азъ бо, кнѧже, ни за море ходилъ, ни от философъ
научихсѧ”.
Going за море in the Slovo indicates going abroad to the Greek-Byzantine
south, where “philosophers”, in Rus’ worldview, came from. Going abroad to
Byzantium is an experience that increases one’s intellectual sophistication, the
learned (Christian) knowledge of an individual — which, in this case, does not
carry positive connotations15. Although the name of the sea is not given, from the
point of view of the chronicler, the Byzantine Empire was on the other shore of
12 To the chroniclers, Yakun’s blindness probably just added to his mystery, or perhaps even to the magical
connotations of his character. Modern editors’ tendency to correct “blind’ to “handsome” seems to be
the result of forcing upon a medieval text both historical details available only to us and modern
preconceptions of what traits a prince should, or should not, possess. For example, in Germanic
materials, Odin’s one-eye blindness adds to his powers. See Jaan Puhvel, Comparative Mythology
(Baltimore and London, 1987), 193–198.
13 In the absence of a corpus of 11th–12th century East Slavonic expressions, I cannot state with absolute
certainty that за море appears only once. Of the works I searched, за море only appeared in one, yet it
is possible that I missed other cases.
14 A reference entry on Daniel the Exile’s works, with a reproduction of the text of the Slovo can be found
in L. V. Sokolova (ed., trans. and comm.) “Slovo Danila Zatochnika,” Biblioteka Literatury Drevnei
Rusi, t. 4, ed. D. S. Likhachev et al. (St. Petersburg, 1997). I accessed the digital version on July 15,
2021 at http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4942
15 An interpretation of the understanding of philosophy in Rus’ with a focus on this passage of the Slovo
can be found in Kh. Trendafilov, “Filosofy v pravoslavnom slavianskom mire (IX–XV vv.),” Fakty i
znaki: Issledovaniia po semiotike istorii 4, ed. B. A. Uspеnskii and F. B. Uspenskii (Moscow, 2020),
58–86 (especially 65–66).
35Beyond the Sea: On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle
the Black Sea. The expression is, thus, not metaphorical but literal. Here, as in the
1079 entry of the Primary Chronicle, за море refers to beyond the Black Sea. This
corroborates the argument that the sea in за море was not always the Baltic and
that, therefore, the syntagm had a denotative connotation.
Incidentally, for what it is worth, the 15th-century merchant Afanasii Nikitin
wrote his famous Khozhdenie za tri moria, a travel diary about his journey “beyond
three seas”16. In comparing 12th to 15th century language, we may have to allow for
some diachronic change, yet by the same token, this text informs about a time
comparatively close to the Primary Chronicle. These three seas are the Caspian
Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Black Sea, and they provide another example of the
denotative function of an expression almost identical with the chronistic за море.
***
Usually interpreted as “beyond the sea”, “(to) the other side of the sea” or, by
metonymy, “overseas”, the syntagm за море in the Primary Chronicle is as
obvious as it is ambiguous. It is obvious because the meaning of each of its
constituents, the preposition за and the noun море, is unequivocal. It is
ambiguous because море refers to different seas, and because, despite
accompanying the Varangians in what sometimes looks like a stable pairing of
noun and epithet, за море functions an explicative syntagm with clear
referential value. Moreover, за море hints at the chroniclers’ perception of the
geography of Rus’.
One of the main finds of this analysis is that за море tends to appear not only
in conjunction with the Varangians, but also with Novgorod. Indeed, Novgorod
appears in five of the seven cases where the expression за море is used in
association with the city and region. As I noted above, although the expression
за море appears nine times, two of them are part of the legend of the “Calling”,
only towards the end of which is Novgorod founded. That means that the
association of Novgorod and за море is nearly as prevalent as the pairing of
Varangians and за море. Although statistics are a questionable approach to the
study of a medieval chronicle, especially when the pool of data is so limited,
numbers combined with textual analysis provide some useful information to rely
on. They support the argument that за море denotes a territory beyond Novgorod;
it is not just a formulaic complement to the Varangians. That overseas territory
farther than Novgorod is where Varangians come from. It is also a safe space for
princes persecuted from the Kyivan south, and a source of warriors to fight those
persecutors. Unsurprisingly, the prince who is most often linked to “beyond the
16 See M. D. Kagan-Tarkovskaia and Ya. S. Lur’e, (eds. and comm.) “Khozhdenie za tri moria Afanasiia
Nikitina,” Biblioteka Literatury Drevnei Rusi, t. 7, ed. D. S. Likhachev et al. (St. Petersburg, 1999).
I accessed the digital version on August 2, 2021 at http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4883.
36 Inés García de la Puente
sea” is also the prince most often linked to Novgorod: Yaroslav Volodimirovich.
The long-time Prince of Novgorod uses that town as the jumping board from
which to attempt to flee “beyond the sea”, to recruit Varangians and to enlist
Yakun to his help.
In the Primary Chronicle the sea signified beyond the море is often the Baltic,
as in the Novgorod texts; in one instance, however, the sea referred to is the Black
Sea. The Rus’ of the Kyivan chroniclers is, thus, a long territory fitted between two
seas: the Baltic to the north, Scandinavia-bound; and the Black Sea to the south,
Byzantium-bound. In this way, за море helps us understand how the chroniclers
mapped the land inhabited by princes whose feats, legendary or real, they
described.
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